Open Text Vol. 2

Open Text: Canadian Poetry and Poetics in the 21st Century (Vol.2).
edited by Roger Farr
6 x 8, 124pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-6-1
$16

Poems by Shirley Bear, Ken Belford, Clint Burnham, Ted Byrne, Angela Carr, Steve Collis, Wayde Compton, Kim Duff, Phinder Dulai, Emily Fedoruk, Reg Johanson, Christine Leclerc, Daphne Marlatt, Roy Miki, Jordan Scott, and Fred Wah.


Introduction

The most interesting poetry being written today makes no secret of its desire to recalibrate the spatial and temporal instruments we use to navigate the world – this is the “opening” promised by the open text. In the cramped discursive space of twentieth century poetics, the poem has been productively imagined as a “place” (Olson), a “field” (Duncan), a “room” (Webb), a “baseball diamond” (Spicer), a “zone” (Watten), a “body” (Brossard), a “scale” (Derksen), and a “border” (Toscano), to name just a few of the more compelling formulations.

And such a truncated list, with its narrative illusion, by no means exhausts what are better understood as the coterminous spatial and temporal categories of contemporary poetry and poetics; indeed, as this second volume of Open Text shows, poetic space is also being understood as “land” (Belford), as “square footage” (Duff), or, as Wayde Compton puts it, with impressive historical and social precision, “Clichy-sous-Bois.” At the same time, on the temporal axis, the poem is “the math of multiple history”(Wah), calculated without “calendrical retrievals” (Miki), into a “weekly / daily / feudal / moment” (Dulai). In this line of poetic thinking, the text “begins and ends arbitrarily…not because there is a necessary point of origin or terminus, a first or last moment…[O]ne has simply stopped because one has run out of units or minutes, and not because a conclusion has been reached nor ‘everything’ said” (Hejinian).

Not surprisingly, many of the writers here work in extended, book-length and serial forms that provide the optimal formal conditions in which to pursue “multiple histories” synchronically, and in so doing they avoid that literary trap in which the poet starts and stops the historical clock, an authoritarian and colonizing gesture to be avoided at all costs. Similarly, the intent with this collection is not to announce that something has arrived or that something has passed, or worse, to put on display a number of “finely wrought” or “best of” curiosities; rather the aim is only to pause the hyper-accelerated production of Canadian literary culture just for a second, so we might get a better look at it, and then to move on. Like the serial poem, then, the Open Text anthology, in the words of Jack Spicer, is a “book, which is a unit like a poem.” It is “an ongoing process of accumulation” (Conte), a “narrative which refuses to adopt an imposed story line, and completes itself only in the sequence of poems, if, in fact, a reader insists upon a definition of completion which is separate from the activity of the poems themselves” (Blaser).

Between September 2008 and October 2009, the time measured by this volume of the Open Text series, the 15 writers assembled here read from their work at Capilano University as part of our ongoing reading series, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Creative Writing program at Capilano, and the Writer’s Union of Canada. This is a record of what transpired.

– Roger Farr, October 2009


Order

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TWELVE SECRETS: The Fourth Annual Five-Minute Play Festival at Capilano University

TWELVE SECRETS

Twelve five minute plays Three characters The tension of secrets The triangle

A Lecture by Tom Cone

Thursday, Dec 3rd

11:30 am

Capilano Performing Arts Theatre

The Creative Writing and Theatre Programs at Capilano University invite you to a special presentation by Vancouver playwright, librettist, lecturer and teacher Tom Cone. Tom will introduce some of the concepts and models that will inform this Spring’s Fourth Annual Five Minute Play Festival, which brings Creative Writing and Theatre students together to develop, under Cone’s guidance, a series of five-minute, three character plays. Open to all. Students interested in participating in the project must attend this lecture.

About Tom Cone

Playwright, librettist, lecturer and teacher, impresario, curator and promoter of cultural hybrids, and nurturer of the avant-garde, Tom Cone is major force behind Vancouver's experimental art, music and theatre scene. His many plays include True Mummy, Love at Last Sight, and Herringbone; adaptations of classic plays include Moliere's The Miser and Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters; and his Librettos include The Architect for Vancouver Opera and The Gang for Vancouver New Music. Cone is also the founder of Songroom -- a salon for new song collaborations--, and CABINET: Interdisciplinary Collaborations -- an experimental arts collective. His latest play, Donald and Lenore, premieres this Spring as part of the 2010 Chutzpah! Festival.

For info:

Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener

English Dept,

Capilano University

Creative Writing Courses: Spring 2010

Here’s what’s on deck for Spring 2010:

English 103-06 - Studies in Contemporary Literature - Roger Farr
(Mixed Mode-North Vancouver)
The aim of these mixed-mode sections of ENGL 103, which meet on-line every other week, is to put students into contact with some of the writers, texts, practices, and movements that compose “the contemporary.” We will read a novel, some very short stories (“micro fictions”), some poetry, and a graphic novel. You will develop your critical awareness of language and contemporary culture through a number of writing projects, and through participation in discussion forums and in-class activities. You will also have the option of completing one assignment as a "ficto-critical" project; that is, a project which involves combining "creative" with "critical" writing, if you are so inclined.

Required Text:

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. Vol. II. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2009.
• Fiorentino, Jon Paul. Stripmalling. Toronto, ON: ECW, 2009.
• Stern, Jerome, ed. Microfictions. New York, NY: Norton, 1996.
• Stone, Anne. Delible. London, ON: Insomniac, 2007.
• other readings available in class and on-line.


English 190-01 - Creative Writing I - Reg Johanson
This course introduces students to fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

Required Text:

• Six Cities. The Capilano Review. Series 2 No. 47, Fall 2005.

English 191-01 - Creative Writing II - Crystal Hurdle
When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, to visiting writers at the Open Text and Kinder Text Reading Series, as well as to the work of your colleagues, in aid of developing your style, articulating your voice.

Required Texts:

• Gary Geddes, ed. 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics
• Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction

English 191-02 - Creative Writing II - Ryan Knighton
In English 191 we will continue to develop our skills as writers by asking how writing can be made, not what it might mean. Specifically, we will further engage with questions of poetry, microfiction, and so-called creative non-fiction, as directed by their form and history. Our workshops are neither roundtable editing sessions, nor, worse, copyediting boot camps. Rather, we will share draft examples of our own work in order to further our discussions, to expose new questions, and to seek the effects of craft. Some case examples from published works will be provided in class, but our own writing will serve as the primary texts. So will Stephen king’s memoir, On Writing, which is pretty damned fine. By the final class, students should have at least one reworked submission of writing ready for a magazine or periodical. To that end we will survey some of the nuts-and-bolts of pitching and publishing, too.

Required Text:

• King, S. On Writing (most recent edition)

English 203-01 - Canadian Literature - Sheila Ross
This course examines a selection of engaging contemporary Canadian narratives, introducing students to important critical and cultural issues about the Canadian colonialist past and multicultural present. Especially important is the related problem of literary representation, and each of these works in its own way compels us to ask, “What kind of story-telling is going on here?” We first examine two unusual biographies that draw us into the Canadian colonialist past: Chester Brown’s comic strip Louis Riel, and Rudy Wiebe’s provocative, “co-authored” Stolen life. This paves the way for a look at Thomas King’s short story collection One Good Story, That One, which invokes First Nations oral traditions and whose humour is entirely subversive. Similarly, Alice Munro’s Open Secrets seems intent on reminding us of a number of assumptions we have about how stories should behave and the kinds of truth they ought to disclose. The course considers two novels about immigrant experiences, very different except for this: each central character commits an act of audacious story-telling in order to dispel the silences that surround loss and longing (Yan Martel’s Life of Pi and Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For). Secondary material on authors, works and critical issues will be provided as the course proceeds.

Required Texts:

• Chester Brown, Louis Riel (1999)
• Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson, Stolen Life (1998)
• Thomas King, One Good Story, That One (1999)
• Alice Munro, Open Secrets (1995)
• Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)
• Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (2005)


English 207-01 - Literary Theory and Criticism - Ian Cresswell
This course is intended to introduce students to a variety of critical thinkers and literary schools within the western tradition. Starting with Classical notions of the nature and function of poetry, we move on (through an examination of Kantian aesthetics) to examine Aestheticism, with particular reference to Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" will take us into the world of psychoanalytical criticism, and specifically the work of Freud and Lacan. We will go on to explore Structuralism, Russian Formalism, Deconstruction and Marxism, with particular reference to Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Finally, we will read Shakespeare's King Lear, having regard to the aforementioned theories.

Required Texts:

• Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edition in bookstore.
• Kundera. Milan. The Unbearable lightness of Being. Edition in bookstore.
• Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Edition in bookstore.
• Dictionary of Critical Theory. Edition in bookstore.


English 217-01 - Literature on the Edge - Reg Johanson
The Graphic Novel: Comix and History
This course explores how the comix genre brings its traditional emphasis on satire, parody, and political commentary to bear on history and autobiography. Our reading list offers examples of the genre that highlight its subversive, anti-authoritarian posture, as well as its neurotic, paranoid darkness. We also watch several films for context and reference.

Required Texts:

• Mccloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Perennial: New York, 1994.
• Herge. TinTin and the Blue Lotus. Little, Brown and Co.: Boston, 1984.
• Speigelman, Art. The Complete Maus: A Survivors Tale. Pantheon: New York, 1997.
• Sacco, Joe. Palestine. Fantagraphics: Seattle, 2006.
• Satrapi, Marjan. Persepolis. Pantheon: New York, 2003.
• Satrapi, Marjan. Embroideries. Pantheon: New York, 2006.
• Brown, Chester. Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography. Drawn and Quarterly: Montreal 2006.
• Moore, Allen and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. DC Comics: New York, 1989.


English 218-01 - The Art of Children's Literature – Roger Farr
This course examines writing for, about, and by children. From Robin Hood and Runaway Bunny to the latest issue of Stone Soup -- a magazine featuring writing and art by people under thirteen years of age --, we will survey a number of classic and contemporary works, with a focus on the complex interaction between attachment, authority, and autonomy. We will also read a short text that challenges the notion of ‘childhood’ itself, by making the radical argument that it is society that must adapt to the needs of children, not the other way around. With this challenge in mind we will consider the infamous case of “The Wild Boy of Aveyron,” a feral child found living in the woods in France in 1797. The story of his capture and attempted domestication reveals much about societal attitudes toward children – and “childishness -- in the West.

Required Texts:

• Children in Society: A Libertarian Critique
• The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature
• The Wild Boy
• Songs of Innocence and Experience
• Runaway Bunny
• Stone Soup

English 290-01 - Creative Writing: Letter and Line - Reg Johanson
This course focuses on “documentary” poetry and poetics. Our starting point is Kaia Sand’s challenge, “why leave journalism to journalists, news to news services?”. We study the various ways in which poets can use, co-opt, subvert, and challenge the media, the ways in which we can “document” contemporary issues and struggles, and how our work can respond to a “social command”. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 290 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies—Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for Degree program students.

Required Text:

• Six Cities. The Capilano Review. Series 2 No. 47, Fall 2005.


English 292-01 - Creative Writing: Children's Literature - Crystal Hurdle
Experience an intensive workshop in writing literature for children of various ages. Examine and practice the art of writing for children by exploring a range of different strategies and techniques: identify narrative structure, myth, character development, levels of diction, voice, etc. Discover voices and forms for your writing and express your ideas in styles appropriate for children’s interests at different ages, from picture books and nonsense rhymes for children to young adult novels in verse. In developing your own projects, become a successor to J. K. Rowling!

Required Texts:

• Sarah Ellis’ From Reader to Writer
• Deborah Ellis’ The Breadwinnner
• William New’s Dream Helmet
• Pamela Porter’s The Crazy Man
• Print Pack with assorted readings

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KIM MINKUS

Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University concludes on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet at CapU instructor Kim Minkus:

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Kim Minkus is the author of 9 Freight (LINEbooks 2007) and Thresh (Snare Books 2009). Other work appears in FRONT Magazine, Interim, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, LOCUSPOINT, ottawater, Memewar and Jacket. Her academic research focuses on contemporary poetry, feminist poetry and the archive. In the spring of 2006 she was a fellow at King’s College in London, England and the archival research she completed while there lead to the publication of her book 9 Freight. Currently she is a writing instructor at Capilano University.

stripped down. crawl and stick. folds flutter. stress random stress cathexis stress stumble. bare seizure. entrails near the surface. bodily movements ratchet each emotion. they all exhaust me. tremble while you tell me it matters. glean meanings where there are none.

-- from "Station"

For info:

Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KEN BELFORD

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts

& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 with a reading by Prince George poet Ken Belford:

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

In addition to 18 chapbooks, Ken Belford has published five books of poetry: Fireweed, The Post Electric Caveman, Pathways Into the Mountains, ecologue and lan(d)guage. Difficult to categorize, Belford’s poetics blend borders. He is a self-educated land(d)guage poet who mixes a learned and lived pre-industrial knowledge with the push and pull of present-day questions, conversations, and what he sees as new linguistic possibilities.

“The surface particulars – rivers, mountains, forest, lakes and all that live there – act not as backdrop but as the literal and imaginative source for the poem and the necessary syntax Belford generates and inhabits. His poems are ongoing, large and politically dimensional, brave in their opposition to any traditional practice that would diminish what the new poem must reveal.” – Barry McKinnon

I trust, not in men or their systems,

but in women, and I don’t care about

saving time, or covering more space.

Writing of cities is about power

and class, and poems about place

are towns that look alike. The only

thing that differentiates them is

the memories in the buildings of authority,

where memory is manufactured,

and time is not money, but space.

When we remember together, other

memories are silenced and called heritage

in the space of a few hours, broadcast

into every room until the storage capacity

is full. Clock time is something signaling

the total, but the way I remember, what

I heard was about the succession

of forms and temporal complexity.

Anyway, I was distracted and inattentive,

and looking for some breathing space,

an opening or break, something I could

say in the company of strangers.

– from lan(d)guage: a sequence of poetics

Upcoming Readings:

• Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: TED BYRNE & EMILY FEDORUK

Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 with readings by Vancouver poets Ted Byrne and Emily Fedoruk:

LIB 188 @ 11:30 (note new room)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

TED BYRNE. Born Hamilton, Ontario, 1947. Lived in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, late 60s. Worked as welder, fitter, typist, dishwasher, laundry worker, truck driver, cab driver. Re-educated early 70s: Basil Bunting (Victoria), Robin Blaser and other SFU teachers, especially Jerry Zaslove, Anthony Wilden, Michael Lebowitz and Jane Harris. Avoided the English Department as much as possible. Worked in libraries late 70s early 80s. Shop steward. Union rep in feminist union (AUCE Local 1). MA (Comparative Literature) UBC. Late 80s to present, Trade Union Research Bureau. Member of Kootenay School of Writing collective. Author of Aporia (Fissure/Point Blank) and Beautiful Lies (CUE, 2008; published serially, Raddle Moon, Sprang Texts, W, Thuja). Current project: Sonnets: Louise Labé (West Coast Line, W, Onsets, The Gig).

EMILY FEDORUK is a poet and dancer living in New Westminster, BC. An MA candidate at Simon Fraser University, she is currently conducting research into the social space of malls and their representation in contemporary art and literature. Her first book, All Still, was published in Fall 2008 by Linebooks.


Upcoming Readings:

• Oct 29: Ken Belford
• Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KIM DUFF & CHRISTINE LECLERC

Sponsored by The Writer’s Union of Canada
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 with readings by Vancouver poets Kim Duff and Christine Leclerc:

Cedar 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

KIM DUFF is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, where she is studying contemporary British literature, Thatcherism, privitization and urban spatial theory. Her previous research has included avant-garde poetry and urban spatial logic. Her book of poetryTube Sock Army was published by LINEbooks in 2008.

Christine Leclerc, originally from Montreal, now lives in Vancouver. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her work has appeared in 42opus, Dig, FRONT, FU, Memewar, OCHO, Pistola, subTerrain, terry, the Worksound gallery, and is forthcoming in Interim. Leclerc is the author of Counterfeit, a book of poetry published by Capilano University Editions (CUE Books) in 2008. She teaches creative writing at Langara College, Continuing Studies.

Upcoming Readings:

• Oct 22: Ted Byrne and Emily Fedoruk
• Oct 29: Ken Belford
• Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ANGELA CARR

Sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday October 8th, 2009 with a reading by Montreal poet and translator, Angela Carr.

• CE 148 @ 11:30
• Capilano University
• 2055 Purcell Way
• North Vancouver

Angela Carr is the author of Ropewalk (2006) and, more recently, the Rose Concordance (2009), which masquerades as a translation of the keyword index to a medieval French allegory. She has published in Canada and internationally, and her poetry has been translated into French and Slovene. Angela Carr is based in Montreal, where she makes her living as a translator of history.

“The anarchy of the fountain is an absence of water Instead buffeting violet light on the downward arc from a splendidly perched upper basin

The upper basin is important, not unlike colour, to any notion of the authentic The upper basin is intrinsic yet supplemental, a bird’s perch, an unattainable accessory both toweringly majestic and superfluous like a figure head whose style is a belated container a raised basin for grey areas”

-- from “Sleep Water”

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: FRED WAH

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University commences on Thursday, Sept. 17th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet, critic, and editor Fred Wah:

Arbutus 314 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Fred Wah studied music and English literature at the University of British Columbia in the early 1960's where he was one of the founding editors of the poetry newsletter TISH. After many years of teaching in the West Kootenays and at the University of Calgary, he now lives in Vancouver. He has been editorially involved with a number of literary magazines over the years, such as Open Letter and West Coast Line. Recent books are Diamond Grill, a biofiction (1996), Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity, a collection of essays (2000), and two collections of poetry, Sentenced to Light (2008) and is a door (2009).


5. (that cottonwood)

Orifice foreignicity
some “it” at stake
unrecognizable in the distance
or “if” is dying
beyond meaning
truth or rust
just one call gets through
in fact they started singing
the ospreys flew off
and then a raven landed
in that cottonwood office
door thresh
holding “that”

-- from “Articualtions”


For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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Capilano Faculty featured in Canadian Literature

Check out Canadian Literature's feature on our very own Crystal Hurdle.

The current issue of CanLit also includes a review of Surplus, by Roger Farr, and Courage, My Love, by Reg Johanson.


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Creative Writing Courses: Fall 2009

Here's what's on deck for Fall 2009 – note the new program courses ENGL 100 and 103: these are required for all incoming students in the Creative Writing Program.

English 100-01 – Academic Writing Strategies (Roger Farr)

This section of English 100 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for those in the Creative Writing Program. It introduces the genres and strategies – or, as we will come to know them, “the moves” – used by creative writers working in academic situations and contexts, focusing on expository and argumentative forms such as book reviews, research essays, and artist statements, as well as related, literary forms like photo-essays, creative non-fiction, and manifestos. In all cases, the course will emphasize the importance of solid research skills in both critical and creative writing. As for our reading, this will include student work, and a selection of contemporary literary journals and magazines, including several on-line publications. We will also attend readings and talks by writers visiting the campus as part of the Open Text Reading Series. By the end of the course, students will more imaginative in their critical writing, and their creative work will be more critically informed.

Required Texts:

• Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York, NY: Norton, 2006.

• Hacker, Diana. The Canadian Writer’s Reference Guide. 5th ed. NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.

• Recent issues of The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, Matrix, and Geist.

• Other materials available in-class and/or on-line.


English 103-01 – Studies in Contemporary Literature (Roger Farr)

This section of English 103 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for those in the Creative Writing Program. The goal of the course is to put students into contact with some of the writers, texts, practices, and movements that compose “the contemporary.” What is “the contemporary,” you ask? We will only be reading work published within the last two years. Additionally, we will attend readings by writers visiting the campus as part of the Open Text Reading Series, who will present and talk about their current work. Finally, we will follow the lead of “the contemporary” by adopting an experimental, investigative attitude towards our writing assignments, which will require both critical and creative responses to the material we encounter.

Required Texts:

• Belford, Ken. lan(d)guage: a sequence of poetics. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlan, 2008.

• Boykoff, Jules, and Kaia Sand. Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Poetry and Public Space. Long Beach, CA: Palm, 2008.

• Carr, Amanda. A Rose Concordance. Toronto, ON: Book Thug, 2009.

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2008/09.

• Fiorentino, Jon Paul. Stripmalling. Toronto, ON: ECW, 2009.

• Stone, Anne. Delible. London, ON: Insomniac, 2007.

• other readings available in class and on-line.



Engl 190-01/02 – Creative Writing I (Reg Johanson)

This course introduces students to fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.


ENGL 190-03 – Creative Writing I (Roger Farr)

This mixed-mode course meets in person on alternating Thursday evenings. The other weeks we meet in cyberspace. Other than that, it's business as usual: ENGL 190 is a forum where students can develop their writing, and their thinking about writing, through guided experimentation with language. You will work in a variety of modes and genres, including creative non-fiction, short stories, very very short stories, poems, serial poems, and writing for performance (radio/podcast scripts). As for reading, we will consider each other’s work, as well as work appearing in current literary journals and magazines, to see what other writers are up to. By the end of the course, you will have a generous portfolio of writing of which you will feel proud, and which may or may not impress your friends and family.

Required Texts:

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. Vol. I & II. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2008.

• Stern, Jerome, ed. Microfictions. New York, NY: Norton, 1996.

• Recent issues of The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, Matrix, and Geist.

• Other materials available in-class and/or on-line.


English 191-01 – Creative Writing II (Crystal Hurdle)

When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, to visiting writers at the Open Text and Kinder Text Reading Series, as well as to the work of your colleagues, in aid of developing your style, articulating your voice.

Texts:

* Gary Geddes, ed. 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics
* Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction
* And assorted recommended texts to kick-start your imagination


Engl 291 – 01/02 Narrative and Fiction (Reg Johanson)

This course will focus on “biotext”, a hybrid prose form which combines fiction, autobiography, memoir, history, found texts and prose poetry. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 291 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies—Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for Degree program students.


For more information contact:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener


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Robin Blaser: 18 May 1925 - 7 May 2009

"Death is not final. Only parking lots."

-- Jack Spicer





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POETRY AND PROVO!

A READING AND PRESENTATION BY JORDAN ZINOVICH, WITH HANS PLOMP IN ATTENDANCE: MAY 5th, SPARTACUS BOOKS

Sponsored by the Writer’s Union of Canada, The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

Open Text is pleased to present poet, historian, and editor Jordan Zinovich, who will read from a new work, “Chronicle of an Unverifiable Year,” followed by a screening of documentary film footage related to Richard Kempton’s book "Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt" (Autonomedia). Provo activist and poet Hans Plomp will also be in attendance.

Tuesday, May 5th @ 7:30
Spartacus Books
684 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

JORDAN ZINOVICH was born and raised in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. He left Canada in 1974, and since then has lived in Crete, England, France, Guinea Conakry, Holland, India, Spain, and New York City, where he now resides. He has published two historical biographies about personalities who opened the western Canadian north (“The Prospector: North of Sixty” and “Battling the Bay”); the critical anthology “Semiotext(e) CANADAs” (of which he was Project General Editor); the novel “Gabriel Dumont in Paris”; The Poetry Collections “Cobweb Walking,” “The Company I Keep,” and “Chronicle of an Unverifiable Year”; the poetic radio play “John Chapman’s Harvest”; and, most recently, “Tantric Panic,” a collection of Hans Plomp’s short stories translated from Dutch. His work has been translated into French and Dutch, with radio performances in New York and Amsterdam. At present he is a senior editor with the Autonomedia Collective, one of North America’s most notable underground publishing houses.

Born in Amsterdam in 1944, HANS PLOMP took an active part in the “Provo revolution” and in 1973 was part of the occupation of the village of Ruigoord, which for over 35 years has thrived as creative community of “spiritual anarchists” from different cultures and generations. He has published novels, stories, poems and essays, and organizes the annual Fiery Tongues festival of poetry and music at Ruigoord. He is also an avid traveler and has spent some five years in India, an account of which was published in English by Ekstasis Editions. Plomp has toured Europe and the U.S. with Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ira Cohen, Gerard Malanga, Diana di Prima, Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman. His work has also been collected in "Nine Dutch Poets" (City Lights, 1982).

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)


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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: SHIRLEY BEAR

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University concludes on Thursday, April 2nd with a reading by Shirley Bear:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

The author of a book of poems entitled Virgin Bones (McGilligan Press, 2007), SHIRLEY BEAR is a multi-media artist, writer, activist, and native traditional herbalist. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick, Canada. Shirley Bear was the 2002 recipient of the Excellence in the Arts Award from the New Brunswick Arts Board.

For Info:
Reg Johanson
Creative Writing Convener
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: PHINDER DULAI

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet Phinder Dulai:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

PHINDER DULAI is the author of two books of poetry: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press 1995); and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions 2000). His work has been published in various journals, including: West Coast Line, The Capilano Review, Memewar Magazine, Rungh, Ankur and Matrix, and can also be found in the anthologies Making a Difference – Canadian Multicultural Literature (OUP 2006) and Companions and Horizons – Anthology of SFU Poetry (Line Books, 2005). As a South Asian Canadian writer interested in post colonial Diaspora perspectives, Dulai works in diffusing and exploring these roots through contemporary poetics.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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P3: PoetryPianoPoetry

Please join LINEbooks for a reading by Kim Minkus and Glen Lowry.
Hank Bull will play piano between sets.

Friday March 20th, 7:30 pm
1067 Granville Street. (Alley Entrance)
BYOB

Hank Bull has been an important member of the legendary Western Front Society since 1973. He is the also the founder and executive director of Centre A (Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) since 1999. His works have been collected by National Gallery of Canada, Netherlands Media Art Institute and many private collectors. He has a long history of playing piano in many settings.

Glen Lowry is a Vancouver-based writer, photographer, scholar, and editor. He co-edits West Coast Line and his work appears in the anthology, Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2005). Pacific Avenue is forthcoming from LINEbooks. He lives in Vancouver and works at ECUAD.

Kim Minkus is a poet, researcher and writing instructor. She is a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University's English Department where her research interests are contemporary poetics, avant-garde book history, and archival experiment and risk. She has had articles published on poets Susan Howe and Stephen Cain. LINEbooks published her first book of poetry 9 Freight in the fall of 2007 and her second book Thresh is forthcoming. She has had reviews and poetry published in FRONT Magazine, Interim, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, LOCUSPOINT, ottawater, Memewar and Jacket. She currently teaches at Capilano University.

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ROGER FARR

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver writer, editor and teacher Roger Farr:

Arbutus 314 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Roger Farr is the author of SURPLUS (Line Books, 2006), a co-author (with Reg Johanson and Aaron Vidaver) of the collaborative research project N 49 19. 47 - W 123 8.11 (Recomposition, 2008), and the editor of PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. Other work appears or is forthcoming in The Canadian Journal of Communication, Fifth Estate, The International Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Rad Dad, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. He works at Capilano University.

For info:
Reg Johanson, Creative Writing Convener
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ROY MIKI

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver critic, editor, poet and teacher Roy Miki:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

ROY MIKI is the author of Justice in Our Time (co-authored with Cassandra Kobayashi) (Talonbooks 1991), two books of poems, Saving Face (Turnstone 1991) and Random Access File (Red Deer College Press 1995), and a collection of critical essays, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Mercury Press 1998). His third book of poems, Surrender (Mercury Press 2001), received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His two most recent publications are Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice (Raincoast 2004), and There (New Star Books 2006), a book of poems. He received the Order of Canada in 2006.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: DAPHNE MARLATT

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet, novelist, and critic Daphne Marlatt:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Vancouver writer Daphne Marlatt has written over twenty books of poetry, fiction and essays, notably Steveston, Touch to my Tongue, This Tremor Love Is, the essay collection Readings from the Labyrinth, and two novels, Ana Historic and Taken. In 2006 Pangaea Arts (Vancouver) staged a bicultural, bilingual production of The Gull, her contemporary Noh play about Steveston’s Japanese-Canadian fishing community, winning the international Uchimura Theatre Prize. The Given was published in 2008, as was Between Brush Strokes, about the life and work of the B.C. painter Sveva Caetani. Also in 2008 Otter Bay released the CD Like Light Off Water, a collaboration with composer-musicians Robert Minden and Carla Hallett. Marlatt was awarded the Order of Canada in 2005.


For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)


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Progressive Texts: WCL/LINEbooks Launch

Thursday February 19th 7:30 pm
The ANZA club 3 west 8th ave in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver

Active Geographies: Women and Struggles on the Left Coast
Edited by Rita Wong & Jo-Anne Lee

Citizenship and Cultural Belonging
Edited by Sophie McCall & David Chariandy

sybil unrest
Rita Wong & Larissa Lai

The Artist and the Moose: A Fable of Forget
Roy K. Kiyooka
edited with an afterword by Roy Miki

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Info:
Michael Barnholden
Managing Editor, WCL
www.westcoastline.ca

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: JORDAN SCOTT

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University begins on February 10th with a reading by Vancouver poet Jordan Scott.

LB 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Originally from Coquitlam, British Columbia, JORDAN SCOTT now wanders between the Pacific and the Shield. His first book of poetry, Silt (New Star Books), was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In the fall of 2006, he worked on the final sections of blert while acting as a writer in residence at the International Writers' and Translators' Centre in Rhodes, Greece.


For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilnou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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SOAP: On-Campus Five-Minute Play Festival

SOAP: On-Campus Five-Minute Play Festival

This festival will première eleven brand new plays written by Creative Writing students and performed and directed by Theatre students. The unifying theme is le mystère. Writer-in-residence Tom Cone has overseen the project.

All performances take place in Arbutus 001. Both groups perform every show time. Group One before the intermission and Group Two after. Tickets $5.

The date and times of the five-minute play festival SOAP are as follows:

Wednesday February 11: Groups One & Two 4pm. Groups One & Two 7pm.
Thursday February 12: Groups One & Two 7pm
Friday February 13: Groups One & Two 7pm.

Call the reservation line to book: 604.990.7979

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Call for Submissions for The Liar

It's February and that means that it is one short month until deadline for the Spring 09 issue of the Liar. Don't be shy! Give us all you got!

Again, deadline for submissions is March 1st. If more time is needed then we recommend you e-mail us telling us so. For any questions about submissions, past issues or anything else, please e-mail us at liarsarebetterlovers@gmail.com.

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Open Text Reading Series: Spring 2009

Tuesday Feb. 10 11:30-1 LB321
Originally from Coquitlam, British Columbia, JORDAN SCOTT now wanders between the Pacific and the Shield. Jordan’s first book of poetry, Silt (New Star Books), was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In the fall of 2006, Jordan worked on the final sections of blert while acting as a writer in residence at the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre in Rhodes, Greece.


Thursday Feb. 26 11:30-1 LB 321
DAPHNE MARLATT After moving from Malaysia to Vancouver in 1951, Marlatt attained her BA from the University of British Columbia in 1964, MA in Comparative Literature from Indiana University in 1968, and LL.D. from the University of Western Ontario in 1996. After publishing poetry for many years, she published two novels, Ana Historic (1988) and Taken (1996), and numerous critical articles. Most recently Marlatt has edited Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka by Roy Kiyooka.


Thursday March 5 11:30-1 LB 321
ROY MIKI is a writer, poet, and editor who lives in Vancouver. He is the author of Justice in Our Time (co-authored with Cassandra Kobayashi) (Talonbooks 1991), two books of poems, Saving Face (Turnstone 1991) and Random Access File (Red Deer College Press 1995), and a collection of critical essays, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Mercury Press 1998). His third book of poems, Surrender (Mercury Press 2001), received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His two most recent publications are Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice (Raincoast 2004), and There (New Star Books 2006), a book of poems. He received the Order of Canada in 2006.

Thursday March 12 11:30-1 AR 314
ROGER FARR is the author of SURPLUS (LINEbooks, 2006), a co-author (with Reg Johanson and Aaron Vidaver) of N 49 19. 47 - W 123 8.11 (Recomposition Books, 2008), and the editor of PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. Recent poetry, micro-fiction, and critical writing appears or is forthcoming in Anarchist Studies, Boog City, The Capilano Review, The Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution, Fifth Estate, Matrix, Magazine Minima, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, The Poetic Front, The Rain Review, W, West Coast Line, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. In 2005 he edited the “6 Cities” issue of The Capilano Review; currently he is editing a three-volume anthology of contemporary Canadian poetry and poetics, Open Text: Canadian Poetry in The 21st Century (CUE, 2008). His work has been heard on the airwaves of Anarchy Radio in Eugene, Oregon; Free Radio Olympia and KAOS FM in Washington State; and Tree Frog Radio, Denman Island, BC.


Thursday March 19 11:30-1 LB 321
PHINDER DULAI is the author of two books of poetry: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press 1995); and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions 2000). His work has been published in various journals: West Coast Line, The Capilano Review, Memewar Magazine, Rungh, Ankur and Matrix. His work is also found in a number of anthologies: Making a Difference – Canadian Multicultural Literature (OUP 2006) and Companions and Horizons – Anthology of SFU Poetry 40th Year anniversary (2005). As a South Asian Canadian writer interested in post colonial Diaspora perspectives, Dulai works in diffusing and exploring these roots through the contemporary poetics.


Thursday April 2 11:30-1 LB 321
The author of a book of poems entitled Virgin Bones (McGilligan Press, 2007), SHIRLEY BEAR is a multi-media artist, writer, activist, and native traditional herbalist. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick, Canada. Shirley Bear was the 2002 recipient of the Excellence in the Arts Award from the New Brunswick Arts Board.


Contact: Reg Johanson, Creative Writing Convener


The Open Text Series is brought to you by the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing, The English Department, The Humanities Division, The Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Canada Council.


For information on the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing, see www.capilanou.ca/programs/english/creative-writing.html.


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KinderText Reading: Bill New, Jan 29

William New, University Killam Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2003-d., will read from and discuss his works for children, among other things, at Capilano University on Thursday Jan. 29th, in LB321, at 11:30 am. Free. His work for kids includes Vanilla Gorilla, Llamas in the Laundry, Dream Helmet, and his latest, The Year I was Grounded. Sponsored by the Writers’ union of Canada and Canada Council for the Arts, this is 2009’s first Kinder Text reading.

Contact: Crystal Hurdle
churdle@capilanou.ca
604-984-0353 local 2420

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